News Review

‘I was after squid but heard crying. I saved 14 babies’

A fisherman and three grannies from Lesbos who spent months at the heart of the refugee crisis, helping the desperate, have been nominated for a Nobel prize. They tell Christina Lamb why they don’t deserve it

In the early months of the crisis, locals provided the only help for refugees arriving in Lesbos (Aris Messinisaris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images)

The sideboard and table in Emilia Kamvisi’s spotless kitchen-diner in a
fishing village on the north shore of the island of Lesbos are covered with
framed photographs of her eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Amid all the pictures of birthday parties and Greek dancing there is one
that stands out — of her and two other old ladies in widows’ weeds feeding
the baby of a dripping-wet woman in a headscarf.

For the past year, Kamvisi, 83, along with fellow grandmothers Maritsa
Mavrapidou, 85, and Efstratia Mavrapidou, 89, has found herself on the front
line of Europe’s refugee crisis.

About half the 1.2m refugees heading to Europe last year passed through
Lesbos, having made the hazardous six-mile sea crossing from Turkey in
overcrowded rubber dinghies or fishing boats. As the closest point to
Turkey, the rocky northern beach of Skala Sikaminia was their main landing
spot.